The DNC Says 'Education Is on the Ballot.' Here's What That Does and Doesn't Mean

Democrats think 2018 is their year, and they're using education—and educators—to make their case.

On Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee highlighted teachers and others with education connections who are running for Congress and other elected offices. The committee said Dems are "running and winning by making education central to their campaigns" and that these candidates "want better pay for teachers and better schools for every child." They also highlight the teacher protests in states like Arizona and Oklahoma as another factor.

Let's break down some of how education is playing a role in the 2018 election that Democrats are hoping is a "blue wave."

• Hayes beat a competitor, Mary Glassman, in the Democratic primary, and it was Glassman, not Hayes, who had the backing of the Democratic establishment in Connecticut's 5th District race. (Glassman beat Hayes in the fundraising game by hundreds of thousands of dollars, for example.) So it's not as if a candidate's teacher credentials are a guarantee of party support in primaries.

• The DNC's point of highlighting educators running is well taken: There's an "unprecedented wave" of teachers seeking office, as our colleague Madeline Will wrote in July. And high-profile walkouts have clearly played a role.

But being a teacher doesn't exempt you from losing. In our tracker of teachers who are running for office this year in the wake of several teacher walkouts, you'll see that more than 50 of the teacher candidates have lost their primaries, out of 158 total teacher candidates. Well over half of those losing candidates were in Oklahoma, where one of the most protracted and intense walkouts took place.

• Garcia has run for statewide office before: He lost the general election for Arizona superintendent to Republican Diane Douglas in 2014, in a year that turned out to be not particularly good for Democrats. We profiled Garcia in 2014.

The DNC notes that Garcia is opposed to the universal education savings accounts signed into law last year by GOP Gov. Doug Ducey. (The DNC calls these "vouchers" but that's off-base.) After a failed push to repeal the law earlier this year, voters will decide in November whether to keep or scrap it.

Photo: Jennifer Esau, center, an Oklahoma teacher who is running for a state Senate seat, talks with Sandra Yost in Claremore, Okla., as she and her 16-year-old daughter Isabelle, right, canvass her district for votes earlier this month. Esau was unopposed in her primary. (Brandi Simons/Education Week)

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